Redline Tango - Music for Wind Band
Carter Pann (b. 1972): Slalom
Carter Pann's honours in composition include the K. Serocki
Competition and a Grammy nomination for his Piano Concerto, first prizes
in the Zoltán Kodály and François d'Albert Concours Internationales de Composition,
a Charles Ives Scholarship from the Academy of Arts and Letters, and five ASCAP
composer awards. His works have been performed by the London Symphony, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony, National Repertory Orchestra, National
Symphony of Ireland, Stockholm Radio Symphony, the Czech State Philharmonic,
and the Seattle Symphony. Slalom for Wind Ensemble is his first work for
band. Carter Pann holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music and the University o f Michigan.
Composer's Note
Slalom for Wind Ensemble was commissioned in 2003 by the University of Kansas. It is a taste of the thrill of downhill ski-ing. The work is performed at a severe tempo
throughout showcasing the wind ensemble's volatility and endurance. The idea
for a piece like this came directly out of a wonderful discovery I made several
years ago at Steamboat Springs, Colorado when I embarked on the mountain-base
gondola with a cassette-player and headphones. At the time I was treating
myself to large doses of Shostakovich's Tenth Symphony and Rachmaninov's
Symphonic Dances. The exhilaration of barreling down the Rockies with such music pumping into my ears was overwhelming. After a few years of ski-ing
with some of the greatest repertoire, it occurred to me that I could customize
the experience. The work is presented as a collection of scenes and events one
might come by on the slopes. The score is peppered with phrase-headings for the
different sections such as "First Run", "Open Meadow, Champagne Powder",
"Straight Down, TUCK", and "On One Ski, Gyrating", among
others. In this way Slalom shares its programmatic feature with that of
Richard Strauss's Alpine Symphony. The similarities end there, however, for
Slalom lasts ten minutes … precisely the amount of time I needed to get
from Storm Peak (the peak of Mt. Werner, Steamboat Springs) to the mountain
base.
Carter Pann
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Charles Ives (1874-1954), arr. Jonathan Elkus: The Alcotts
At once revered and reviled, Charles Ives is one of America's most colourful 20th-century musical icons. An insurance salesmen by trade and a
musician at heart, Ives uses the commonplace and the strikingly dissonant
side-by-side. It is music both distinctive and personal.
The Alcotts
is a re-imagining of the lyrical third movement of Ives's Concord
Sonata. Jonathan Elkus, an eminent Ives historian and former arranger for
the United States Marine Band, provides us this wonderful setting. For Ives,
the Concord Sonata was a summation of his worldview and aesthetic
philosophy (ideas expounded on in his literary commentary Essays before a
Sonata). The three main ideas presented in the sonata include the idea of
honest, robust self-reliance embraced in the utopian mysticism of the
commonplace associated with the New England Transcendentalists. The second idea
presented in The Alcotts is the reaction against the intellectual trends
of the world of his time in favour of the innocence and naiveté of his home in Danbury, Connecticut. The third idea is Ives's personal obsession with the issue of art
music's presumed threat to his masculine identity. It surfaces in the sonata as
a mixture of shock and dissonance and confrontation. The Alcotts represents
both the idea of home and a real historic family. Ives conjures up the humble
Alcott parlour where we can hear the old spinet piano Sophia Thoreau gave to
the Alcott children on which Beth played the old Scotch airs, the "fifth
symphony," and a missionary tune. The movement opens in B flat and is
pervaded by what Ives calls the "human-faith-melody" that floats above
Concord and rings out at the climax near the end, elevating us
transcendentally a whole step higher to C major.
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Michael Mower (b. 1958): Concerto for Flute and Wind Band
Concerto for Flute and Wind Band was composed in 2004 by Michael
Mower and commissioned by a small consortium of universities including the University of Kansas. Mower is a native of England and has been composing "cross-over"
music for many years fusing classical and jazz styles. This concerto marks his
first major work for the wind band medium. A variety of popular styles
including swing, Latin, and rock are utilised in the concerto and the
orchestration includes a drum set and upright bass. Jazz rhythms and
inflections are found throughout, especially in the outer movements. The middle
movement, by contrast, is more free flowing and impressionistic. The flute
writing is virtuosic with technical and stylistic demands throughout.
Mike Mower works as a composer, mainly writing newly
commissioned works. His music is published by Itchy Fingers Publications, for
which he has written a series of very successful books of educational standard music.
He also works as an arranger for commercial music in a wide range of styles and
combinations. He studied flute at the Royal Academy of Music in London and was later awarded the ARAM (Associate of the Royal Academy of Music). As a
freelance musician he has played and recorded with jazz, rock and classical artists
as diverse as Gil Evans, Tina Turner, Paul Weller, Björk, James Galway and
Ryuichi Sakamoto. As a composer and arranger he has written for numerous Big Bands
including the BBC Big Band and Radio Orchestra, NDR Radio Big Band, the Stockholm Jazz Orchestra, the University of Kentucky and the Texas Tech Wind Orchestra.
Individual artists such as James Galway, Airto Moreira and Flora Purim, Clare Southworth
and the Safri Duo have commissioned works from him as well as numerous
ensembles from saxophone quartets to string quartets. He has arranged orchestral
pop scores for styles as diverse as for Pop Boy Bands, MOR covers, and for the
Eurovision Song Contest.
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John P. Lynch (b. 1963): Were You There?
Were You There?
by John P. Lynch is a tone-poem based on the traditional
hymn tune. The title becomes a philosophic rhetorical question examining
various contemporary views of the message of religion. The introduction hints
at the hymn tune and is followed by the river motive marked "flowing",
a metaphor for life. Two new themes are then introduced. The first marked
"with conviction" is strong and righteous representing the literal
interpretation of the message of Christianity and is vaguely reminiscent of
another traditional hymn. This gives way to the second original theme marked
"tenderly" which expresses a looser interpretation based upon
compassion. The following section re-introduces the flowing river idea, now
with a sense of stasis reflecting Buddhist philosophy, in which the themes are presented
as questions. A circular contrapuntal motive appears in the piano presenting
the atheist viewpoint. This section culminates in the most straightforward statement
of "Were You There?" The piece draws to a close with a
forceful presentation of the three main themes in juxtaposition, leaving the
final conclusion up to the listener.
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John Mackey (b. 1973): Redline Tango*
*Winner
of the American Bandmaster's Association Ostwald Composition Contest, 2005.
John Mackey holds degrees from the Juilliard School and the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he studied with John Corigliano and Donald
Erb, respectively. His works have been performed at the Sydney Opera House, Carnegie
Hall, the Kennedy Center, and throughout Italy, Chile, Japan, China, Austria, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Brazil, Germany, England, Norway, and the United States. Mr. Mackey has received numerous commissions from the
Parsons Dance Company, as well as commissions from the Cleveland Orchestra
Youth Orchestra, New York City Ballet, the Dallas Theater Center, the Alvin
Ailey Dance Company, the New York Youth Symphony, the Juilliard School, Concert Artists Guild, and many others, including several college wind ensembles. As a
frequent collaborator, he has worked with a diverse range of artists, from Doug
Varone to David Parsons, from Robert Battle to the US Olympic Synchronized Swim
Team. (The team won a bronze medal in the 2004 Athens Olympics performing to
Mackey's music.) To learn more about John Mackey, please visit www.ostimusic.com
Composer's Note
Redline Tango
was originally commissioned by the Brooklyn Philharmonic,
and premièred by that ensemble with Kristjan Jarvi conducting in 2003. The original
orchestra version has since received performances with the Dallas Symphony and
the Minnesota Orchestra (both conducted by Andrew Litton) and at the Cabrillo Contemporary
Music Festival (conducted by Marin Alsop). In 2004, Mackey was commissioned to
re-work the piece for wind ensemble through a consortium consisting of Emory
University, Lamar University, Arizona State University, Florida State
University, Louisiana State University, Illinois State University, the
University of Kansas, and Mercer University. The wind ensemble version heard on
this CD received its première on 26 February 2004, at Emory University with Scott Stewart conducting. It has since received over 75 performances worldwide,
and it won the 2004 Walter Beeler Memorial Composition Prize, and in 2005, the
prestigious Ostwald Award. Redline Tango is John Mackey's first work for
wind ensemble.
Redline Tango
takes its title from the idea of "redlining an engine,"
or pushing it to the limit. The work is in three sections. The first section is
the initial virtuosic "redlining" section, with constantly-driving 16th-notes
and a gradual increase in intensity. After the peak comes the second section -
the "tango" - which is a bit lighter, but demented, and even a bit
sleazy, complete with a hint of klezmer thrown in. The material for the tango
is derived directly from the first section of the work. A transition leads us
back to an even "redder" version of the first section, complete with
one final bang at the end.
John Mackey